Anyone who is diehard anti-gun for personal use, I recommend taking a pistol class from a reputable organization, and keep an open mind. No one is telling you to get a license or buy a gun, just go take a class. They will teach you all about safety, how to shoot, gun cleaning and maintenance, and all of the basic skills needed to properly own a gun. Then if you are still diehard anti-gun, great! But if you have no experience, then taking a day to learn more might help you understand how the other side thinks.
Pistol sights
51–60 of 331 posts
Re: Pistol sights
#52There are improvements to be had in pistol sites that don't involve battery powered gimmicks. The trapezoid sights on Steyr M pistols for example. I rented one from my local range and it works well for new shooters.
Re: Pistol sights
#53If you're interested in the science behind this, you may be even more interested in learning how peephole style rear iron sights almost eliminate the dual sight alignment problem of goal-post style rear sights (as commonly found on pistols). The rear peep sight on rifles take advantage of actual "optical effects", without any glass -- much like a pinhole camera can actually magnify images without any lenses or mirror…
When I shot competitively (rifle in HS, almost 30 years ago) I was a big fan of the double peephole sights. All you had to do was center the target in the aperture and make sure the aperture was circular. Takes all the work out of sight alignment and then you can focus on breathing, heartbeat and trigger squeeze.
I did the same kind of competition, and the double-aperture sights were, indeed very effective and effortless to use. There's a catch though: they're only good for shooting circular targets of the correct apparent size.
I actually did once use a rifle with such sights to take some small game. It was not easy to aim outside of the conditions for which it was designed.
Re: Pistol sights
#54Anyone who is diehard anti-gun for personal use, I recommend taking a pistol class from a reputable organization, and keep an open mind. No one is telling you to get a license or buy a gun, just go take a class. They will teach you all about safety, how to shoot, gun cleaning and maintenance, and all of the basic skills needed to properly own a gun. Then if you are still diehard anti-gun, great! But if you have no ex…
This is good advice. I grew up hunting and shooting, but in adulthood have come to agree that reasonable gun control is really something we have to do. However, the gun vs. anti-gun divide in the US is as pure a split as exists on any policy position. Few on one side know or understand the thinking or positions of any on the other.
People who don't shoot often don't know even the most basic things, like what differentiates a rifle from a shotgun, or what happens when a modern pistol runs out of bullets. They don't get the vast difference between a .22 and a 9mm on any level (size of projectile, powder load, etc.). And they certainly don't understand why pursuing something like a quote-unquote assault weapon ban is legislatively and logically difficult.
Re: Pistol sights
#55Going target shooting is incredibly relaxing and a great break from the workday. The focus required to sight in a target and control one's breathing, arm, and finger movement is a very powerful relaxant to me and melts stress away. I work from home and I live in the burbs so pistol or rifle shooting is not possible. However, I've gotten really hooked on shooting (of all things) my Red Ryder BB gun. It doesn't make a…
10 metre ISSF air rifle is easily the most zen form of shooting. It's a competitive exhibition of absolute stillness and calm. Modern precharged pneumatic air rifles are completely recoilless and astonishingly quiet:
Re: Pistol sights
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
You may be former JSOC, but I've played Call of Duty.
Did we just become best friends? Someone fire up the GoldenEye. Slappers only!
Totally OT, but there's a version of GoldenEye with mouse and keyboard controls so you can play it on PC at 60FPS with multiplayer.
I won't link to it here but I'm sure an interested person could find it pretty easily.
Re: Pistol sights
#57There are improvements to be had in pistol sites that don't involve battery powered gimmicks. The trapezoid sights on Steyr M pistols for example. I rented one from my local range and it works well for new shooters.
I found the length of the channel in between the rear sights makes a large difference for me in accuracy - compare [1] and [2]. The longer sight nearly eliminates (or at least makes the errors more obvious) the issues being discussed at the end of the article. By having a long sight you are forced to align the front closer to the center - there is almost no gaps between the left-gap-front-gap-right because the length of the sight occludes the front entirely if not aligned.
Some stock sights are now being shipped with long rear aperture.
This may make target acquisition take longer - I would be curious how professional and competition shooters feel about the difference.
1 http://cockedandlockedguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/IM...
2 http://assets.suredone.com/1928/media-photos/truglo131gt1y-1...
Re: Pistol sights
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have not personally been in a gunfight (thankfully) but a couple different people I know have. It went something like this: "Oh shit" followed by the gun being drawn and fired in very close quarters with no aiming whatsoever because the person/people was/were knife distance away. I know that's not how all encounters go down, but my takeaway from these stories is that contact distance is the norm and you should expe…
I vaguely recall reading somewhere about some study where they found out that when the police fire their pistols, at a range of 5 meters they hit about 50% of the time. Having spent a fair amount of time in my youth shooting with a BB pistol in my parents garage, I find the above statistic entirely believable. Shooting a pistol accurately is much more difficult than it looks, so I can certainly imagine that in a high…
even with a rifle, in a stable position, shooting a moving target is extremely hard while popular culture makes it look trivial.
Re: Pistol sights
#59Former JSOC dude here. Circumstances requiring engaging with pistols == bad day for everyone, so only a few things matter. Front sight focus (which implies maintaining equidistance from the rear sight posts), both eyes open, fast presentation, parallel grip, smooth trigger pull, reacquire, repeat as necessary. And optical sights = more things that can break / run out of batteries / fall off and make noise / etc etc.
I have not personally been in a gunfight (thankfully) but a couple different people I know have. It went something like this: "Oh shit" followed by the gun being drawn and fired in very close quarters with no aiming whatsoever because the person/people was/were knife distance away. I know that's not how all encounters go down, but my takeaway from these stories is that contact distance is the norm and you should expe…
IIRC the statistics, according to cop teaching my CCW class:
90% of handgun shootings are Takes 7-15 seconds to bleed out from a direct shot to the heart (i.e. drugged up people are still dangerous after multiple shots to chest). The only instant stop is a 2" band around the head.
15% of handgun shootings are fatal (mostly due to quick medical response these days).
In the one second you have to draw, the bad guy can cover 18 feet from a standstill; have done this drill.
Re: Pistol sights
#60Anyone who is diehard anti-gun for personal use, I recommend taking a pistol class from a reputable organization, and keep an open mind. No one is telling you to get a license or buy a gun, just go take a class. They will teach you all about safety, how to shoot, gun cleaning and maintenance, and all of the basic skills needed to properly own a gun. Then if you are still diehard anti-gun, great! But if you have no ex…
This is good advice. I grew up hunting and shooting, but in adulthood have come to agree that reasonable gun control is really something we have to do. However, the gun vs. anti-gun divide in the US is as pure a split as exists on any policy position. Few on one side know or understand the thinking or positions of any on the other. People who don't shoot often don't know even the most basic things, like what differen…
I believe this pure split you refer to is the fault of the gun control advocates. In the mind of the 2nd amendment folks every compromise they have made has led to that being the new normal to build the next compromise, thus sliding down the slope. Both political parties would do well to soften their purity tests.